Something in her pocket was digging into her leg. She pulled it out—there in her hand was a business card bearing a police logo. Detective Sergeant Joanna Harper, Greater Yorkshire Police CID. She remembered now, that policewoman who came to the hospital, who’d been kind to her. She’d given her the card before she left that day. Ring me anytime, she’d said, if anything unusual happens. Anything at all. Lauren found her phone in her other pocket and dialled the number.

“Hello?”

“Detective Harper?”

“Speaking.”

“I don’t know if you remember me, but we met last week, in the hospital. I’d called the police, in the night. They told me it wasn’t real, but she’s come back. She’s outside my house—she was staring at me. My husband’s chasing her now, but if he catches her I can’t have her in the house. She scares me, Harper. She wants to take my children—”

“Is that Mrs Tranter? Lauren?”

“What shall I do? Can you come? How does she even know where we live? She must be following me.”

“Lauren, calm down. Give me your address. I’ll be there as soon as I can, OK?”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know who to call. You said anytime …”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry. Just tell me where you are.”

Lauren told her the address and hung up. Soon there was the sound of her husband walking back towards the house. His head appeared in the doorway as he reached the top of the steps and bent to inspect the sole of one foot. Blood from a cut dripped onto the doorstep.

“Did she get away?” asked Lauren.

He paused before he answered, sliding his eyes sideways, considering. “Darling,” he said, “when you said it was the woman from the hospital, did you mean the one you saw in the middle of the night?”

“Yes, of course that one. The one that threatened me.”

“Ah. OK. I understand now, I’m so sorry. I thought you meant a real person.”

Lauren felt dizzy. “She is a real person. I saw her, she was right there.”

Patrick was using his soft voice, the one he used with the babies. “I know, darling, I know. She seems real to you. But she’s not. Remember what the doctor said? It’s because of the tiredness, that your mind forms shapes from the shadows, making them seem real. There was no one there.”

“No one there?”

He shook his head. “I looked in the bushes, then I went to the top of the road and down to the corner in both directions. I’ve only gone and cut myself. Are there any bandages?”

“I don’t understand, Patrick. Where did she go?”

Patrick huffed and sighed. His patience was draining away. He prodded tentatively at his cut foot. “There was no sign of anyone, darling.”

“But I saw her. She was standing there, staring at me.”

“I know you think you did, Lauren. But perhaps you were just … could it have been a shadow, perhaps?”